Pureblood V I
by lekhak
Summary: Sirius lacked the thin face that his brother had and the large mop of unruly curls on the top of his head made him look much younger than he actually was. The Blacks were proud of their sons, with their pure blood and the regal look that one could only find in a pair of kids that had been raised to think their blood made them far superior to others.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Orion and Walburga Black, of number 12 Grimmauld Place were proud to say they were a perfectly respectable pureblood family. They were the last people to associate with the wrong type of wizards, because the noble and ancient house of Black didn't hold with such nonsense.

Orion Black was a member of Wizengamot, which was equivalent to the wizarding version of the Parliament. A fact that he and his wife were very proud of. He was a tall, slender man with an arching neck, slicked black hair and a stern, quiet personality. Walburga Black however was the opposite; she was a big burly woman that stood with immaculate posture. They had two small children, Regulus Arctulus Black and Sirius Black.

Regulus took after his father, even at the age of seven he had a thin sallow sort of face and well-behaved straight black hair. Sirius was different, lacking the thin face that his brother had and a large mop of unruly curls on the top of his head made him look much younger than he actually was. The Blacks were proud of their sons, with their pure blood and the regal look that one could only find in a pair of kids that had been raised to think their blood made them far superior to others.

It was a sunny morning in London and Orion Black was feeling particularly spirited after his early leave from the Wizengamot meeting. The offices had been a flurry all day but he had yet to find out why. There were letters flying throughout the Ministry, charmed pieces of parchment shaped like planes and birds flew all around and he had glimpsed a group of hooded aurors rushing off towards the Floo fireplaces on the bottom floor.

The hearing that he had been attending that morning had been good, it had been an issue of a muggleborn witch selling enchanted clothing to the muggle market. His position in the matter had won out and the witch had been convicted under muggle baiting. Orion was excited to go home and complain to his wife and children about his views and how dangerous including muggleborn scum in their world could be.

As he got on to the lift from the judicial floor to the department of transportation however, his mood dampened by the rush of interns that crowded into the small space with him. The ministry was never this full. He didn't recognize many of these kids, they were all the recent Hogwarts graduates, only the ones that had no proper connections in the Wizarding world worked as basic interns. Meaning most of them were probably mudbloods or the children of blood traitors. The numbers were going up each year and he shook his head disappointedly as they all rushed out at the next stop of the lift. Every year the wizarding world had to tighten its belt and lose some more privileges as the children of the very muggles that restricted all of their resources took space in these halls. It was appalling really that the ministry allowed this free range to all of them. Just a slight increase in selectivity could make all the improvements in their society, he thought to himself. And honestly, forcing respectable witches and wizards to deal with the problems they brought was completely unreasonable.

He had heard just this past year that Hogwarts was hiring more than one set of professors for a few of the classes due to the higher volume of students. He was beginning to consider sending his sons to Durmstrang when time came, they'd be further from home but at least their education wouldn't be mixed with the muggles. Sirius would be starting school in a couple years and he would not want his son to become like one of those blood-traitors always crusading after some "equal rights" movement.

When he got to the floo-fireplace floor however, he saw the inpour of aurors in battered robes looking as though they'd just had the wind knocked out of them.

_What was going on today?_

He decided to try his luck apparating when he saw his brother-in-law, Cygnus, marching excitedly out of the muggle affairs office. "Orion there you are!" He ran over excitedly, "you must get home to Walburga quick and tell her the news!"

"The news?" Orion asked, curious.

"Yes well…" The man began rambling on about some civil unrest in some country in the east and how all the ministry of magics were working hard to get wizarding families out of harm's way. Orion stood politely tuning him out. He knew what Cygnus was talking about, of course, every pureblood wizard knew the stories of the places in the east that had no Muggles at all. Wizards that lived freely with no muggle intervention, practicing magic with virtually no restrictions. There was one country, a blanketed one from the muggle world, supposedly in the foothills of a mountain range in which the muggle population was close to null.

"Which is why the Armanatis are moving to Britain." He finished, almost out of breath.

"They're real?" Orion asked. He had always thought the Armanatis were some sort of fictional story that all parents told their children.

"Oh yes, they are a quiet bunch but both Calliope Fengari and Dante Armanati are coming"

"How do you know this?" He had seen his wife perusing the pages of the occasional Witch Weekly for a glimpse of the Fengari-Armanati alliance. The royalty of the international pureblood world, they were a sort of legend. Calliope Fengari had gone to Hogwarts, the same time that Walburga had been there. That had been really the only proof of existence of the magical country that she came from. It was so hidden that even most of the wizarding world had trouble getting in, and virtually nobody knew anything about them or their culture.

The obsession with them had begun with Calliope's three-year tenure at Hogwarts, after which she had transferred over to Beauxbaton where she appeared in multiple "Sorciere-Mode" covers. A few years later she had pretty much disappeared, aside from the few "teas" she threw when she visited France or Italy from time to time. Only the most elite pureblood witches and wizards would be invited and the stories from those events would be talked about for the next couple years.

He got back home as quickly has he could. His wife was sitting in the lounge-room, a thick book labeled "History of Blood Purity" in her lap.

"You knew Calliope Fengari during your time at Hogwarts right honey?" Orion asked as he took a seat across from where she sat. Walburga Black barely looked up from her book as she let out a "uhuh".

"I heard something about them today."

"Something what?" She asked, but she didn't sound as interested as Orion had imagined she would have been.

"Oh nothing much, just that her and her family might be returning to Britain."

The woman briefly looked up from her book. "Oh that's just gossip, every few years the rumor goes around that something big is happening with her, its rarely true."

"Does she still send you Christmas cards?" Orion asked, knowing that his wife always showed off her correspondences with the woman to all of their extended family.

"Every year on the dot, and a gift for Regulus and Sirius on their birthdays."

Orion hadn't known of that fact, but his wife didn't seem to show any interest in being distracted from her book so he dropped the series of questions that he had planned on asking his her.

As she continued reading, his mind wandered back to his sights that day. The Aurors with their tattered robes and how sure Cygnus had been of what had been going on.

Almost entirely across the world from where the Blacks sat in their lounge chairs in number 12 Grimmauld Place a woman was running across a large marble lain floor. Her hand wrapped around a small girl's as they both breathed hard and sprinted. The buildings were shaking and the woman pulled the girl's arm as one of the large pillars holding up the roof collapsed in their path.

"Mummy, why can't we just apparate away?" the girl asked, tears welling out of her eyes.

"Magic has been cut off sweetie. There's a portkey coming up, your father and brother are waiting for us there." The woman explained as they continued to run down the large corridor.

There was a large blood-red curtain up ahead and a tall dark man and a boy stood next to it. Looking nervously towards the running woman and girl.

"Calliope hurry! The portal is about to expire!" The woman stretched out her arm, grabbing on to the curtain the same time her husband and son did and suddenly the whole place was empty. Only the shaking pillars were left, and not even a minute later the entire building crashed down.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Nearly five years had passed since Orion Black had stepped out of his Wizengamot meeting to learn about the muggle uprising in the east, but hardly anything had changed in the Ministry of Magic. The Fountain of Magical Brethren was exactly the same, the sun reflecting off of the shining metal and lighting up the atrium.

Three years ago, there had been a rush of people running to and fro, Aurors being deployed and coming back bruised and burned. There was none of that today, which is why Orion Black was on his way to the fireplaces to floo his way home. Apparating in and out of the Ministry had gotten a bit tricky the past few years, after the muggle uprising and the uptrend of crime that had been happening. He had brought this up at their meeting today, but of course Albus Dumbledore, the current chief had shut the idea down. The blood traitors would be the ones to bring down the entire wizarding community, he was sure of that.

As he headed to one of the fireplaces, he glimpsed a tall dark man with deep blue robes walking up from the general direction of the department of mysteries. He had only seen Dante Armanati once or twice, but everyone always spoke about them. After the uprising, him and his wife had moved into an enormous estate on the far side of the English countryside. It was rumored that their land took up the size of half a forest and parts of a muggle town.

A year after their arrival, Dante and Calliope Armanati had begun working in the Ministry. Dante worked in the Department of Mysteries, which meant that he was almost never seen nor heard since they never spoke of the research they did down there. And Calliope worked in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. She was more visible than her husband, but her job was even more discreet if that was even possible. They seemed like a respectable lot however, they spoke with such few people regularly that he doubted they were muggle sympathizers.

Much of his knowledge however, came from what his wife told him. Their son Caspar was a prefect at Hogwarts, and had become the captain of the quidditch team. His niece Narcissa talked about him occasionally, her face going red each time the Armanatis got brought up. They were a popular dinner conversation.

Dante Armanati was speaking with a hooded man he saw, and he watched until the green smoke of the floo network covered his vision and he was left standing in the fireplace at his own home.

"Sirius Black, get down here this instant!" He found his wife standing in the hall, her hands on her hips looking murderous. Regulus was standing next to his mother, looking frightened and holding a small stuffed doll in his hand.

"Orion, good you're home. Could you go get your son? He has barricaded himself in his room again." Walburga rolled her eyes, grabbing Regulus' hand and pulling the boy out of the room.

This had become quite the common occurrence in the house, it usually was when Sirius was told they would be visiting someplace. Orion knew that he didn't like being around his cousins, especially Bellatrix who he suspected had been practicing her curses on her younger cousins.

Orion had always made sure to cast a few charms on both of his kids so that nothing actually harmful could be done to them, but Walburga didn't have the patience to explain that to Sirius. She always got along with Regulus more, he was a lot more willing to follow directions and ask fewer questions.

When Orion got upstairs, he found Sirius sitting on the floor of his room peeling the paint off of the corner of the walls. "I don't want to go dad." He said not even looking up.

"You know that's not an option son." Orion didn't even know where they were supposed to be going. He hadn't actually had the time to discuss or go over anything with his wife yet. "Do you have any idea where your mother is planning to drag us to?"

"Some new family, she said it was a big estate and that I had to go because they had a kid my age."

"A kid your age?" He didn't know who she could have been talking about.

"Yeah, I've never heard of them though, they were called the Aroma something."

"The Armanatis?" He asked, surprised. In the past five years they hadn't invited anyone to their estate. No wonder Walburga had been so angry at Sirius, he could easily guess what her plans were. The Armanati's younger child was almost the same age as Sirius, although, he couldn't imagine her matchmaking to be a smart idea when it came to their older son. It would have been fine for Regulus but Sirius never did something he didn't want to.

"Why don't you want to go?" He asked his son.

"There's nothing to do. Why do I need to go?"

"Well… they have a really big yard. And a forest, you would probably be allowed to roam as you please while the adults aren't paying attention." He reasoned.

"A forest?" The boy only seemed to hear the part of Orion's reasoning that he was interested in.

"Yes, are you interested in going now?"

"Okay. But I'm still angry at mother." He replied.

Orion convinced his son to come down to dinner with them, which was an event of its own. Sirius barely spoke the whole time and Orion could see how it was bothering his mother.

"I saw Dante Armanati at work today." Orion began, trying to diffuse the tension before Walburga and Sirius' fight got loud.

The comment on the Armanatis seemed to distract Walburga for a minute as she recounted the message she'd received from Calliope. "They sent this beautiful letter, when I opened it it had been charmed to show Calliope actually speaking to me."

"Did they now? That is quite exciting."

That was all it took as Walburga began to outline the entire plan of action for the week leading up to the party. Orion was just relieved that he didn't need to spend any more of his actual energy on this mundane gossip and on controlling his wife and son's argument. All he had to do now for the next week was follow Walburga's directions and listen to the rambles.

His wife's plan, as she outlined it the rest of dinner was to get new dressing gowns tailored for each of them. She needed to get intel on what the Malfoys and the Lestranges were doing and to find out exactly who else had been invited. She already knew that the Potters had, despite being quite the blood traitors. She doubted the Armanatis knew all of this rich English Wizarding history however, since it was not like they were English or even out enough to figure out which family was of what sort.

The Weasleys had definitely not been invited, but Walburga had heard from the Bulstrodes that Dumbledore and a few members of the Hogwarts staff would be present. Walburga had insisted however, that this event would be decent and that in the future she knew they would invite better people.

"As long as Sirius can behave and not embarrass us again in front of them." Walburga added loudly.

Sirius, who had been deep in conversation with his younger brother suddenly looked up. Orion could see a deep anger in his eyes as the boy stood up abruptly, the chair he was sitting on fell back with a crash and he stomped out of the room and up thee stairs.

"You can forget about dinner tonight!" Walburga yelled as she dug into her dinner.

This was not an uncommon occurrence during dinnertime either. The angrier Sirius got, the more his mother attempted to agitate him. Orion didn't really notice it for the most part, he spent most of his time working on his defensive charms and with his nose in a book.

Walburga was the one that was home with the children, and she doted on her younger son nowadays. Regulus got along with everyone, he was a sweet quiet boy who always heard others first. He was only eight years old, not that that was much of a difference from Sirius' age of freshly ten.

He was strangely aware however, and that night after dinner he went up to where their house elf lived and asked for some extra dessert and dinner to be sent to Sirius' room from their house elf Kreacher. He even sat and listened as Sirius talked about how he couldn't wait to go to Hogwarts and not have to listen to his mother all the time.

Their cousins also liked to constantly poke fun at Sirius, he was slightly hot-headed and was more likely to react and speak his thoughts out loud than the rest of them. Bellatrix Black especially, she had just finished her seventh year and just that past Christmas she had tried to curse Sirius' fingers off.

Everyone knew that even looking at Regulus the wrong way would put you in the direct path of Walburgas anger but Sirius was way too prideful to even let his family know that he had been bested by his cousin. Although, he doubted his mother would do anything to help him. She would probably think that whatever his cousins did to him was probably a good lesson.

Andromeda was rarely there at the parties, she usually got Bellatrix to stop and knew some really good hexes to throw right back at her.

He did dread having to go to another family function since he knew that some incident between him and his cousins would surely happen. It was with that dread that Sirius spent the rest of the week.


	3. Chapter 3

**So my last post of this chapter came out as code. I didn't even realize it until today! I hope y'all enjoy this now though ! And please please review **

Chapter 3

The outburst from dinner earned Sirius the longest-ever silent treatment from his mother. He was sure that if it wasn't for the party at the Armanatis his mother would not have even let him out of his room to eat. By the time she spoke to him, it was already Saturday evening. The whole Black family had gone to buy new dress robes and sorted through their most beautiful jewelry to don to the party that evening. The letters had arrived, one for each family, with a large magnificent eagle. The letters had gold writing, and were all tied together with golden threads with tiny rubies hanging from them.

He had been in his room when he had heard his mother and the rest of the Black clan authenticating it. The Armanatis did not have any want for gold that was for sure, because they had sent the same glamorous invited to every pureblood that the Blacks would dignify contacting.

He was glad that his exile to his room was over, but he dreaded the return home that night. He knew there would be some flaw in his actions that night and that wasn't something he was particularly looking forward to. Honestly, any place where Bellatrix Black would have free-range to practice her hexes on him he dreaded.

Kreacher had laid out his dress robes on the bed, and he could hear his mother helping Regulus in the hall. It was a dark blue robe, and Sirius was glad it was simple to put on as he ran down the stairs.

"You are not going anywhere looking like that !" His mother screeched the second he got down the stairs.

"What do you mean? This is the robe you got me!" His mother rushed over, her wand out and a bottle of what looked like gel on her hand. The cap of the container flew off as she flicked her wand and he watched as a large clump of gel flew out of it and landed wetly on the top of his head. He could feel the coolness on his head as his hair got pulled back tightly. "Stop, it hurts!" He yelled and tried to pull his hair out of the spell but his mother's magic was stronger than his hands.

"Don't you dare child, or I'll curse your fingers off." She growled.

He spent the rest of the evening, as he waited downstairs for his mother to get ready, trying to pull the hairs out of the spell that she had put on him. "Mum will kill you Sirius, just leave it like that." Regulus pleaded as he watched his brother struggle.

Walburga hadn't put any sort of spell on her younger child, his hair was straight and lightly pushed back on his head. Of course, it was also because Regulus was not that restless nor did he have the mane of curls that Sirius had.

"You don't understand Reg, it hurts." He growled continuing to tug on it.

An hour later, his entire face in pain now, they were all standing in front of the fireplace. His mother had also tied her hair up into a great height. It was so tight that her cheekbones stuck out like table-edges and her normally scowling face looked even angrier.

She grabbed Regulus, her wand out and flicked it, suddenly she was gone. They had decided not to take the floo since nobody wanted their carefully chosen clothes to get ashy on the way out of the grates. He felt his father grab his arm and suddenly the air around him tightened and the room in front of him changed.

An enormous gate stood in front of them with giant knotted trees around them. Sirius couldn't tell if they were actual trees or a part of a carefully designed wooden wall. The first thing Sirius noticed about the gate itself was the myriad of vines that ran around it. Golden lilies and pink rose vines wrapped the dark iron bars, just the gate looked like something out of one of those muggle fairy tales that Narcissa liked to read when her sister wasn't watching.

His father held his wand out to the gate and it swung slowly open to show a dark forest, but the path in front of them was covered with tiny little lights and an ornate carriage stood in front of them.

"I presume we get in?" Walburga said, her voice sounding breathless as she was too in awe to even attempt to mask it.

The carriage began moving once they were all comfortably seated. He watched as the gate shut behind them and the forest moved slowly next to them. There were fireflies flying alongside them, as if someone had trained them to light the way.

He was beginning to enjoy himself, so much that he was even beginning to forget the pain in his scalp. Either that or his head had gotten too numb to feel anymore.

They rode on for about ten minutes when a large mansion came into view. It was oddly-shaped, that was Sirius' first impression. As they rode closer and the trees parted he saw that it was made entirely of carved stone. Light seemed to pour out of the house and the carriage came to a halt right in front of the giant staircase that went up to the front doors of the house.

Two enormous stone hippogriffs glared at them from each side of the stairs, they were so carefully sculpted that when he wasn't looking he thought he could feel their wings flapping. A lot of people were coming into the house. There was a maze of paths that lead up to the hippogriff stairs. Some were being drawn up with carriages just like the Blacks had been, while others were simply walking up. He spotted his cousins a few yards away from them. Even Bellatrix was looking around her in awe. Narcissa looked as if she would start crying any second; in fact Sirius couldn't see anyone that didn't look absolutely astonished by what they saw.

Sirius hadn't thought the estate could have gotten any nicer than what they had seen outside, but when they entered through the gates it got even more beautiful. While the outside of the house had been like a floral heaven, the inside was like molten glass. He couldn't think of any other way to describe it. There was a short hallway, with mirrors on both ends. There were floating words that pointed them in the direction of the lavatory and the powder room, if they had coats or purses to hang it said to simply imagine a hook to hang them in and it would appear.

The floor of the hallway was dark, an absolute black got lighter when they entered a large oval ballroom. There wasn't even a drop of gold in the ballroom, instead the room was surrounded by curved class that went all the way into the ceiling which was covered in a giant painting.

Many people were still arriving but there was lively music playing in the room. Plates floated around filled with different hors d'oeuvres, hovering for a second next to an empty handed witch or wizard and then promptly floating away.

As more people piled in, he saw unabashed conversations about how beautiful the house was. Even his mother, who always had at least one negative word to add about everything had nothing to say. She was uncharacteristically quiet as her husband commented on the wonderful charm work on all the features of the house.

"This is the most amazing place I've been in my life." Regulus whispered, his voice shaking in what Sirius recognized as unbridled excitement. Sirius couldn't even find the words as he shook his head.

He had been to all of the different Black manors, he had even been to the beautiful Malfoy manor with its large peacocks. But he had never been to a place that was as ornately decorated as this one.

As the last remnants of light was disappeared outside, and the light inside got brighter the room began to fill as well. The ballroom seemed to have expanded as the people came in, the Armanatis seemed to have invited every known big wizarding family to their home but they were nowhere to be seen.

He assumed that their entrance would be as dramatic as the layout of this entire place and he was eager to see the people that were responsible for this. He was sure everyone in here was as well because the excitement was running like electricity through the air. Not that they knew what electricity was, especially not the people in this room but Sirius had read some of Andromeda's hidden books.

His cousins had now joined them and was glad for the extravagance of the room because it kept Bellatrix and her other friends from Hogwarts distracted enough to not notice him. His mother was now talking animatedly with her sister-in-law while his father sipped on a drink from a strange-shaped glass goblet.

A plate floated over towards him and he peeked excitedly at it to find a block of chocolate shaped like a dragon. It slithered on the plate, opening its mouth and letting out puffs of smoke until he touched it and it stood still.

He handed one to his brother and was trying to get it to come back to life when the lights in the room began to dim again. The music had gotten softer as well, and a hush went over the room as everyone looked to the top of the staircase on the far side of the ballroom.

The light was still quite significant there, and people seemed to be slowly gravitating towards that direction. Four figures approached the top of the stairs, all dressed in hues of silver. The first to descend was a tall boy dressed in dark grey robes that seemed to glint in the light. His hair was pitch black and neatly swept to the side. The arms of his robes were bare, as the cloth only came up to his elbows. A large silver cuff was around his arm and even from a distance one could see that it was the shape of a winged dragon that ran all the way down to his fingers. A woman was behind him, she had the same dark hair as him, although her skin was much fairer than her son's. She had a thin ring of silver on her head, that held two large rubies on her forehead and the boy stopped for a second holding his arm out so that she could take it.

He could hear murmurs through the crowd.

"What an extravagant display." He heard his mother mutter, but the air of superiority that she had tried to put in her voice fell flat due to the awe that was written clearly on her face.

Up until then, everything had been extravagant and beautiful to Sirius but what he saw next left him absolutely breathless. It was as if someone had spelled the air around him to get warmer, he glimpsed quickly at his cousins to see if one of them had actually done so but they were all staring up at the beautiful family in front of them.

An angel, an actual angel was walking down the stairs. That was the only explanation that Sirius could think of as the short-haired girl skipped down the steps. While the rest of the family had slowly glided down the stairs she was holding the hands of a dark man in grey robes. The air around her seemed to shimmer and her short curls rippled with each step. She had a gigantic smile on her face which took up a majority of her face.

Sirius had to remind himself to breathe, as they all finally reached the bottom of the gigantic series of stairs. He couldn't see them anymore, but his head was slightly spinning so when everyone moved forward to greet the family he was left all the way in the back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey y'all! Let me know what y'all think of this chapter!**

Chapter 4

BOOM. The door shook. Tia jerked awake.

"Where's the cannon?" She said stupidly.

There was a large crash in the hallway and she sprinted out of her room. Her brother stood leaning on the wall in front of the room holding a sparkling wand in front of his face.

"Caspar seriously?" She rolled her eyes.

"Were you napping in the nice dress robes that Mum got you?" He asked her shaking his head in mock disappointment. "Look at you, the guests are almost all here and you're sleeping."

"I wouldn't have had to nap right now if you hadn't kept me up lighting up the entire pathway yesterday." She complained. Her brother had dragged her out to the far gates yesterday and made her help him charm bits of light all over the pathways leading up to the house. He'd gotten the idea from some painting he had seen when he'd gone to visit Beauxbaton earlier that summer and she had agreed only because he had said he'd teach her some cool new spells for her first year at Hogwarts. Caspar was going to be a fifth year the next year, and had taught his sister all the course material that he had had to study for his OWLs all summer. He had needed someone to practice with him, and she was more than eager to be included. In the five years he'd been at Hogwarts he hadn't really made too many close friends. He was in Slytherin and most of his housemates only wanted to be his friend because of the intrigue that came with his last name. In the summers, if he wasn't bothering Tia he usually went to the muggle village and flirted with the muggle girls there or he played football with the kids there.

"You agree to partake in my shenanigans this is what happens." He said. "Mum sent me to get you, she wants us to come to her room so she can charm out hair."

"Our hair?" She asked.

"Yes, she says my unruly mane simply won't do" He shook his wand, imitating his mother and straightening the crumpled parts of her dress robe. "Well, at least now she won't yell at you for napping while you were supposed to be getting ready."

It didn't even take ten minutes for their mother to have both of them looking exactly the way she wanted them to, and they were heading to the ballroom.

"There's so many people." Tia whispered and she saw the glimmer of excitement in her brother's face. He had convinced his parents to let him wear a large absolutely absurd dragon cuff up his arms, and earrings in his ears that resembled swords.

Where he had found dress robes that exposed his entire arm, nobody in her family seemed to know, but they usually didn't ask Caspar too many questions about where he got the stuff he got.

Tia's dress had been made entirely by their old house elf Ellie, she had come back from a trip to Peru with the strangest materials and had insisted in making them robes out of the cloth she got there.

She was shaking slightly as they went down the stairs, everyone was staring at them and Tia could feel her face reddening. She could feel the smile on her face growing as she felt the adrenaline run through her. The witches and wizards moved closer to them together, as if enchanted and Tia wondered if they had never been to a ball before.

Where they were from, extravagant balls like these were normal, and usually people didn't stare that much. Although, she had noticed that the magic in Europe was very limited in comparison to where they used to live. They had a big separation between magic and muggle technology, something that wasn't the case back home, not that she was allowed to call the place she was from home anywhere. Not since their exile.

It was a little disconcerting to see so many people moving towards them, but her parents greeted everyone quickly, introducing Caspar and Tia around thirty times before they were through the crowd. It didn't take more than thirty minutes, and Natialia was out of the crowd.

A group of witches were hovering near Caspar she noticed, but he didn't seem to really mind. He was talking to a tall brown-haired girl that she didn't recognize.

The crowd slowly dispersed, and she watched as people began to pair off to dance. A lot of the old families were well-versed in dancing and she watched jealously as her brother danced easily switching to different partners every few minutes.

She wanted to dance, but she didn't really see anyone her age or remotely her height that seemed to be remotely interested. That was something she had really been looking forward to, dancing. When they had been in Spain the summer before, everyone had wanted to dance with her, and the year before in Gambia more people had danced with her than Caspar.

She drifted around for another thirty minutes, looking around hopefully, and after one unsuccessful round with her father who was interrupted halfway with a particularly stuffy-looking ministry official that seemed to want to talk politics she decided she would try her luck playing in the fountains outside.

Sirius Black had left the ballroom the minute he had spotted the little doorknob in one of the corners of the giant window-covered room. It was mid-summer so it was warm enough outside for him to be comfortable and he had found a particularly entertaining fountain to sit on outside. That was where he had been sitting when he heard the loud howling that rang the air around him.

Sirius didn't get scared very easily, living in the house that he lived in with the extended family that he had but the howling gave him a chill. It could be a wolf, but there was something off about the sound. Not that he had really heard an actual wolf howling before. It was so loud that the ripples in the fountain changed directions. He was just turning to go back inside when he saw someone moving up from the bushes.

She looked like an angel, even more so under the sparse lighting in the garden. She kind of shimmered even though there wasn't any light in her. Maybe she was part veela, he thought to himself and he found himself frozen in place as she bounced towards him.

Maybe not a veela, she didn't move about very gracefully.

"How did you get out here?" The girl asked looking him over once.

"I found a door." Sirius couldn't really think of anything smart to say, but he soon realized he didn't need to. She definitely was not an angel, as she got close to him he saw the little scar she had on her nose and the smudge of thin eyeliner under her eye. Angels didn't smudge their makeup.

Of course, he still thought she was the prettiest girl he had probably ever seen but it wasn't as big of a deal.

"Do you not have any friends?" She asked sitting down on the edge of the fountain. Next to where Sirius had been sitting before.

"I have friends."

"Oh really? So then why are you sitting outside alone?" Her question wasn't mean-spirited; he could tell by the tone of her voice. "I don't have many friends" She continued easily "because mum and papa don't really invite people here much".

"I have cousins." He amended, beginning to hope she would ask him to be her friend "But not all of them are very nice."

"Oh. Well, I'll be your friend." She smiled, and Sirius realized that while her huge smile took half her face, her eyes were just as big and took up the other half. Of course she wasn't an angel, angels had properly proportioned facial features he thought to himself. He needed to stop reading all of Narcissa's hidden books.

"What's your name?" Sirius asked, trying to contribute to the conversation. Now that they had agreed that they would be friends.

"Shouldn't you know my name before you come to my party?" She asked, tilting her head and raising her eyebrows. Sirius could feel his face reddening with embarrassment. She seemed to catch on to his humiliation however and bumped him lightly with her shoulders.

"I'm Tia Armanati, you are Sirius Black right?" Sirius was surprised that she knew who he was. "Are you surprised I know your name?" She asked.

He nodded.

"I helped Ellie and Papa with the invitations, and I have really good memory." She shrugged.

"Who's Ellie?"

"Oh, she's our old house-elf. She came with this manor but we gave her clothes when we moved in and she helps us out from time to time."

Sirius looked at her surprised. "You don't free a house elf. They don't like that."

Tia raised her eyebrows, something he realized she did a lot. "Why wouldn't they? Ellie was a little stubborn at first but everyone deserved to be free."

Sirius didn't know how to reply to that. He had never really thought of a house elf as an 'every_one_'. Their house-elf Kreacher was obsessed with his parents, in fact the heads of his parents that had been house elves before him were mounted on the Black hallway walls. "Are house elves an every_one_?" He asked. He didn't know why, but he felt comfortable around Tia, she didn't really seem like she would get angry at him for asking a stupid question. Even though he had only met her five minutes ago.

"They speak, the eat and they cry." She answered. "So they aren't any different from people."

There was so much logic to what Tia was saying that Sirius couldn't refute it. Not that he wanted to, it made sense. Nevertheless, it was hard for him to imagine Kreacher as a person.

He spent the rest of the evening exploring the garden with Tia, especially after she reassured him that whatever was howling in the woods wouldn't be able to hurt them.

She would be starting Hogwarts next year, in fact she had already gotten her wand. She even let him use it, teaching him a simple charm to make bulbs of light float out of the ends.

"That's how you lit the pathways?" He asked.

"It's in my robes too. That's why it looks like I'm glowing."

The night went by so quickly, and at some point Tia convinced him to go back inside and dance with her. Sirius didn't particularly like dancing but his mother had forced him and Regulus to take lessons so he was pretty good on his feet.

When they got back inside the music was upbeat and people were fox-trotting across the ballroom. Sirius spotted Regulus spinning around with Andromeda, both of them were laughing and getting occasional glares from some of the people bumped into. Scanning through the room, he spotted Narcissa in the arms of Tia's brother, even from here he could see her scarlet skin.

"Ooh Caspar's got a little witch friend." She giggled, grabbing Sirius. "Lets go!"

He spotted his mother in the other end of the room, neither she nor his father were partaking in this. He doubted they would, this was a little too much fun for even them but all the kids and the less uptight adults were spinning around with an abundance of energy.

His mother made eye contact with him, and recognizing the girl the was dragging him into the dance floor he saw a grin take over her otherwise pinched face.

Well, he wouldn't have to be yelled at for misbehaving today. He was doing exactly what his mother wished of him, getting on the good side of the wizarding royalty. He was only ten, but he wasn't stupid.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sirius woke up early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.

"It was a dream," he told himself firmly. "I dreamed that we went to a beautiful palace and an a girl named Tia kept my cousins from jinxing me and my mother from grounding me. When I open my eyes, mother will be screaming at me for not behaving the night before."

There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.

_And there she is, ready to tell me I woke up too late and have to skip breakfast_, Sirius thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Alright," Sirius mumbled, "I'm getting up."

He sat up and his dress robes fell off of him. His room was full of sunlight, someone had opened the curtains when he had been asleep and he was still wearing the robes that he had worn the night before.

He scrambled to his feet, last night had happened. There was even a little scribble on his arm where Tia's brother had drawn an angry doodle of Bellatrix after they had all gotten introduced to each other.

"Sirius, can I come in?" He heard his brother knocking outside and Sirius went to open the doors to his room. The nine-year old boy walked in, a big grin on his face. He seemed to be just as full of energy as Sirius felt from his memories of the night before.

He remembered what his mother had said to him when they had gotten home. "You made me proud tonight son, I never expected this from you. You must send a letter to them tomorrow." She had rambled on about the honor he was bringing to the black family by starting an alliance with such a great family.

Tia woke up before the sun had even risen that morning. She had gone straight to bed after the ball feeling glad that she had made at least one friend the night before. If she was able to make friends so easily yesterday, making some when she finally got to Hogwarts couldn't be that much harder.

The rest of the family woke up about an hour after her. Caspar grumpily drinking his coffee as he toasted his bread with his wand.

"Aren't you suppose to not use magic outside of Hogwarts?" She snapped at him as he flicked a breadcrumb towards her for the fourth time that morning.

"That's a dumb rule."

Caspar didn't really like rules that didn't have much logic to them. He didn't understand how they were supposed to be wizards if they couldn't use their magic. Not that Tia was a big fan of rules.

There was a large basket on her left and she had been trying to pack it for the past half-hour, but there were crumbs all over it because Caspar kept floating crumbs out of the breadloaf and into it.

"Is papa going with you?" Caspar asked. "The Lupins won't mind the crumbs."

She glared at her brother, using her wand to clear the crumbs off the table.

She was going to the Lupin's cottage in the forest to give her friend Remus his medicine. Lyall Lupin, her father's best friend lived in the woods with his wife and their son that was only a year younger than Tia. They had been best friends for the past five years and had been living in the cottage in the woods ever since Remus had been bitten by a werewolf. They had lived on the other side of the village before this, closer to where Lyall's wife lived but after Remus had contracted lycanthropy the Armanatis had offered the land in the woods for them to stay. This way Remus could run around the forest during his transformations.

The woods were large enough that there was no worry of him hurting anyone, and for a five-year old's body to be transforming into a werewolf would have been fatal if he hadn't been able to freely roam.

Despite all of that, Remus was always incredibly weak after his transformations which was why Tia was preparing a basket for him. Once a month, she and her father would bring over a basket of food for him (mostly chocolates) and Mr. Lupin and her father would do some healing spells on him to give him energy.

She didn't have to wait long for her father to get ready and soon enough they were at the Lupin cottage. Remus eating his chocolate as Tia told him about her night.

"I wish I could have come." Remus said quietly when their fathers had finished with their energizing spells.

"Next time." She reassured him. He was sitting up in the bed, and the spells seemed to have put some of his energy back to his body. He only had a few scratches on his body, and she knew that was because of the softening spells her father had put on his nails the evening before.

"I'm glad you made a friend though. At least you'll have a friend when you go to Hogwarts."

"Yeah, but he won't be going there until next year, you'll be going next year too so I won't need any other friends."

"I dunno if I will be, because of you know…" he looked away from her.

"Of course you're going. Dumbledore came just last month to tell you about the tree they're planting specifically for you." She glared at her friend. He had been very unsure about his decision to go back to Hogwarts ever since the headmaster had visited. It had been a very odd situation she remembered.

It had been last year, when Remus had been helping Tia with practicing for the spelling contest that was happening at the muggle school their parents were forcing them to attend. Both Tia and Remus had tied for it but Remus had had to withdraw because it took place the evening of the full moon.

A tall man with long silver hair and a silver beard had just apparated to the yard where they were sitting.

A moment later her father and Mr. Lupin had arrived, looking flustered. Mr. Lupin had thought that Dumbledore was coming to take Remus away from them and had begun to shoot spells at him, until he was calmed down and they had all sat down over tea and biscuits and discussed Remus being able to attend Hogwarts.

"I could hurt someone." That had been what he'd said to Professor Dumbledore that day, and despite all his reassurances Remus repeated it each time Tia tried to make up his mind for him.

She didn't think that that was the entire reason why he was so unsure, but her parents had told her not to pressure him too much. So she spent the rest of the morning distracting him from his curse, letting him use her wand as they practiced spells from her brother's old Charms books.

Remus' health after his monthly transformations had been getting better lately, she saw very few scars on his body, and none of them were very deep. A few years ago the wounds used to be deep and gashed, but he seemed to be doing better.

She had always been fiercely protective of him, according to her parents, even before he had been bitten when the Lupins would visit she would share all of her toys with him. The night he had been bitten, she had been sleeping in the same room. It had been a few months after they had moved to the United Kingdom, to the mansion in the middle of the forest. Tia had convinced her parents to go all the way down to Wales to spend a weekend with the Lupins. They had all been staying cramped in the cottage and it had been a hot summer day, which was why the windows in the kids' room was wide open. Caspar had been fast asleep throughout the whole thing and Tia had woken up to get some water. It had been eerily quiet, and every second of that night was fresh on her mind, even though she had only been six years old. She had filled a glass with water and had been trying to walk back to the room as quietly as she could when she saw a giant creature coming in through the windows.

He was leaning over where Remus was sleeping, it had stared right at her as it sank its teeth into her best friends neck. It had felt like hours before she found her voice and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Her accidental magic had forced the wolf out of the window, and it had run off, but not before leaving the body of a small five-year old Remus Lupin barely together on the bed.

She had remembered how the blood from his neck had gotten all over her clothes, her hair which had been down to her elbows, and all over the bed. She had tried to stop the bleeding, the best a six-year old child knew how, which was not at all, as the parents had all come running in.

Caspar had pushed her aside and put the cloth of the pillowcase on his neck. But the smell of blood didn't leave her body for the next year. She had cut her long hair the day after. The dried blood, no matter how, many times she washed it or begged her mom to spell didn't seem to leave her body. She knew it wasn't actually there, but it didn't help that each time she leaned over to see her dark black hair she would be reminded of her best friend's blood mixing with her curls.

The scar from that bite had never completely healed, but now it was a faint silver thread that ran up his collarbone. Tia's hair also never grew past her collarbones.

"Tia," She felt Remus tugging at the sleeve of her robe. "Tia stop daydreaming." He whined and Tia noticed that she had been absentmindedly folding the edge of the charms book.

"Sorry."

"Do you want to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow? Your brother said he's going with his friends." Remus was looking at her with a hint of hope, and she knew no matter how much he tried to convince them that was unsure about attending Hogwarts there was nothing he wanted more. Well, maybe a cure to Lycanthropy, but going to Hogwarts was definitely second to that.

"Oh, yeah, I would rather go with you than with just Cas."


End file.
